Sir E. B. Lytton's noble romance of Rienzi has
painted in the most attractive and glowing manner the
life and actions of the renowned tribune of Rome. It
must be admitted, also, that unlike many so-called
historical novelists, the author has little, if at
all, overstepped the limits of fact and reality in the
portraiture of his hero, and presents, both in the
delineation of Rienzi's character and the general
picture of the political and social condition of Rome
at the period, an account which, making due allowance
for poetical embellishment, may, on the whole, be
relied on as strikingly just and accurate.

It is well known that Rome, in the fourteenth
century, was in the most anarchical and deplorable
condition. A set of factious and tyrannical nobles had
established, in their lawlessness, a perfect reign of
terror over the unhappy citizens, and had driven the
representatives of St. Peter from their seat in the
Eternal City, to establish a new pontifical residence
at Avignon, in the south of France. Here, during
seventy years of the fourteenth century, the papal
court maintained itself, and, freed from the
restraints by which it was hemmed in and overawed at
home by its own subjects, asserted the privileges of
the sacred college and the authority of ecclesiastical
sway. In the meantime, the general body of Roman
citizens groaned under the oppressions of the nobles,
which were every day becoming more frequent and
intolerable. This scene of violence was unexpectedly
changed by one of the most remarkable revolutions that
have ever taken place in any state, and which, if
carried out with the same success that inaugurated its
commencement, might have exercised a lasting and
beneficial influence not only on Rome, but the whole
of Italy.

Nicolo Gabrini, commonly called Nicole, or Cola di
Rienzi, from an abbreviation of his father's name of
Lorenzo, was the son of an innkeeper and washerwoman
of Rome, who, however, conscious of the natural
abilities of their son, bestowed on him a good
education, which the young man improved to the best
advantage. His enthusiasm was especially excited by
the history of the ancient glories of his native city,
and he revolved with generous ardour many schemes for
raising her from her present degradation to the summit
of her primitive greatness. Chosen as one of the
thirteen deputies from the Roman commons to the papal
government at Avignon, he acquitted himself with great
credit in an oration addressed to Pope Clement VI, and
received the appointment of apostolic notary, with the
daily salary of five gold florins.

Stimulated by the
success thus achieved, he commenced in earnest, on his
return to Rome, his self-imposed task of rousing the
citizens to the assertion of their rights and
liberties. The death of a much-loved brother, whose
assassins, from their aristocratic influence and
position, escaped unpunished, added the impulse of
revenge to that of patriotism. In animated
declamations to the people in the streets and public
places of Rome, Rienzi descanted on the greatness of
their ancestors, the right and enjoyment of liberty,
and the derivation of all law and authority from the
will of the governed. The nobles were either too
ignorant to comprehend, or too confident in their
might, to dread the effect of such addresses, and the
designs of the orator were still further veiled by his
adopting, like Brutus, the guise of a buffoon or
jester, and condescending, in this capacity, to raise
a laugh in the palaces of the Roman princes. But, in
the month of May 1347, a nocturnal assembly of a
hundred citizens was congregated by him on Mount Aventine, and a formal compact was entered into for
the re-establishment of the good estate, as Rienzi
styled his scheme of popular freedom.

A proclamation was then made by sound of trumpet,
that on the evening of the following day, all persons
should assemble unarmed before the church of St.
Angelo. After a night spent in devotional exercises,
Rienzi, accompanied by his band of a hundred
followers, issued from the church, and marched in a
solemn procession to the Capitol, from the balcony of
which he harangued the people, and received, in their
acclamations, a ratification of his assumption of
supreme power. Stephen Colonna, the most formidable of
the nobles, was at this time absent from Rome, and on
his return to crush out at once and forever, as he
imagined, the spark of rebellion, he only narrowly
saved himself by flight, from falling a victim to the
fury of the populace, who supported with the most
determined zeal the cause and authority of their
champion.

A general order was then issued to the great
nobles, that they should peaceably retire from the
city to their estates; a command which was obeyed with
the most surprising unanimity. The title of tribune of
Rome, in remembrance of ancient days, was assumed by
Rienzi, who forthwith set himself with active
earnestness to the task of administrative reformation.
In this, for a time, his endeavours were crowned with
the most gratifying and signal success. The defences
which the nobles had erected around their palaces, and
within which, as in robbers' dens, they ensconced
themselves to the defiance of all law and order, were
levelled to the ground, and the garrisons of troops by
which the citizens were overawed, expelled and
suppressed. Law and order were everywhere
re-established, an impartial execution of justice
insured with respect to all ranks of society, and a
rigorous and economical management introduced into the
departments of revenue and finance. In these days,
according to the glowing account of a historian of the
times, quoted by Gibbon, the woods began to rejoice
that they were no longer infested with robbers; the
oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited the
sanctuaries; the roads and inns were replenished with travellers; trade, plenty, and good faith were
restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be
exposed without danger in the midst of the highway.

The city and territory of Rome were not the only
places comprehended in the patriotic aspirations of
Rienzi, who aimed at uniting the whole of Italy into a
grand federal republic. In such a scheme, he was five
hundred years in advance of his age, and the same
difficulties which retarded its accomplishment in
modern times, were instrumental in causing its failure
in the fourteenth century. The republics and free
cities were indeed disposed to look favourably on the
projects of the Roman tribune, but the rulers of
Lombardy and Naples both despised and hated the
plebeian chief. Yet the advice and arbitration of
Rienzi were sought by more than one European
sovereign, and, as in the case of Cromwell, the
aptitude with which he conformed himself to the
dignity and general requirements of his high station,
formed the theme of universal wonder and applause.

But the judgment and solidity which constituted
such essential elements in the character of the
English Protector, proved deficient with Nicolo di
Rienzi. An injudicious and puerile assumption of regal
state, some acts of over-severity in the execution of
justice, and a tendency to convivial excess, had all
their influence, in conjunction with the proverbial
fickleness of popular esteem, in bringing about the
overthrow of the tribune. On one occasion, when he
caused himself to be created a knight with all the
ceremonies of chivalry, he excited prodigious scandal
by bathing in the sacred porphyry vase of Constantine,
whilst at the same time the breaking down of the state
bed on which he reposed within the baptistery, the
night previous to the performance of the ceremony of
investiture, was interpreted as an omen of his
approaching downfall.

After one or two unsuccessful
attempts of the two great factions of the exiled
nobles, the Colonna and the Ursini or Orsini, who laid
aside their mutual animosities to unite against a
common foe, the dethronement of Rienzi was suddenly
accomplished by the Count of Minorbino, who introduced
himself into Rome at the head of one hundred and fifty
soldiers. The tribune, thus surprised, skewed little
of the resolution by which his conduct had been
hitherto distinguished, and with a lachrymose
denunciation of popular ingratitude, he
pusillanimously abdicated the government, and was
confined for a time in the castle of St. Angelo, from
which, in the disguise of a pilgrim, he afterwards
contrived to escape.

For seven years, Rienzi remained an exile from his
native city, wandering about from the court of one
sovereign to another, and was at last made a prisoner
by the Emperor Charles IV, who sent him as a captive
to the papal court at Avignon. The champion of popular
rights was for a time treated as a malefactor, and
four cardinals were appointed to investigate the
charges laid against him of heresy and rebellion. But
the magnanimity displayed by him before the pope,
seems to have made an impression on the mind of
Clement VI, who relaxed the rigours of his confinement
by allowing him the use of books, the study of which,
more especially of the Holy Scriptures and Titus
Livius, served to console the ex-tribune under his
misfortunes.

On the accession of Innocent VI to the pontificate,
a new line of policy was adopted by the court of
Avignon, who believed that by sending Rienzi to Rome
as its accredited representative, with the title of
senator, the anarchy and violence which since his
deposition had become more rampant than ever, might be
suppressed or diminished. The citizens had, indeed,
experienced ample cause for regretting the order and
impartiality of Rienzi's sway in the tyranny of his
successors. His return was celebrated with every
appearance of triumph and rejoicing, and for a short
period, the benefits which. had attended his former
government marked his resumption of power. But his
relations with the court of Avignon rendered him an
object of suspicion to the people, whilst a spirit of
jealousy and apprehension led him to the perpetration
of several acts of cruelty. To crown his unpopularity,
the exigencies of government compelled him to impose a
tax, and a fatal commotion was the result. In the
closing scene of his career, he displayed a strange
combination of intrepidity and cowardice, appearing on
the balcony of the Capitol, when it was surrounded by
a furious multitude, and endeavouring by his eloquence
to calm the passions of the mob.

A storm of abuse and more effectual missiles
interrupted his address, and after being wounded in
the hand with an arrow, he seemed to lose all manly
resolution, and fled lamenting to an inner apartment.
The populace continued to surround the Capitol till
the evening, then burst in the doors, and dragged
Rienzi, as he was attempting to escape in disguise, to
the platform in front of the palace. Here for an hour
he stood motionless before the immense multitude, who
for a time stood hushed as if by some spell before the
man who had undoubtedly in many respects been well
deserving of their gratitude. This feeling of
affection and remorse might have shielded the tribune,
when a man from the crowd suddenly plunged a dagger in
his breast. He fell senseless to the ground, and a
revulsion taking place in the feelings of the mob,
they rushed upon and despatched him with numerous
wounds. His body was ignominiously exposed to the
dogs, and the mutilated remains committed to the
flames.

Thus perished the celebrated Rienzi, who in
aftertimes has been regarded as the last of the Roman
patriots, and celebrated in such glowing language by
Lord Byron, with whose lines from Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage the present notice may not inappropriately
close

'Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—
The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—
Rienzi! last of Romans!
While the tree
Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts
forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it
be,
The Forum's champion, and the people's
chief—
Her new-born Numa thou—with reign, alas! too
brief.'

On 8th October 1361, there took place on the Ile
Notre Dame, Paris, a combat, which both illustrates
strikingly the maxims and ideas prevalent in that age,
and is perhaps the most singular instance on record of
the appeals to ‘the judgment of God' in criminal
cases.

M. Aubry de Montdidier, a French gentleman, when
travelling through the forest of Bondy, was murdered
and buried at the foot of a tree. His dog remained for
several days beside his grave, and only left the spot
when urged by hunger. The faithful animal proceeded to
Paris, and presented himself at the house of an
intimate friend of his master's, making the most
piteous howlings to announce the loss which he had
sustained. After being supplied with food, he renewed
his lamentations, moved towards the door, looking
round to see whether he was followed, and returning to
his master's friend, laid hold of him by the coat, as
if to signify that he should come along with him.

The
singularity of all these movements on the part of the
dog, coupled with the nonappearance of his master,
from whom he was generally inseparable, induced the
person in question to follow the animal. Leading the
way, the dog arrived in time at the foot of a tree in
the forest of Bondy, where he commenced scratching and
tearing up the ground, at the same time recommencing
the most piteous lamentations. On digging at the spot
thus indicated, the body of the murdered Aubry was
exposed to view.

No trace of the assassin could for a time be
discovered, but after a while, the dog happening to be
confronted with an individual, named the Chevalier
Macaire, he flew at the man's throat, and could only
with the utmost difficulty be forced to let go his
hold. A similar fury was manifested by the dog on
every subsequent occasion that he met this person.
Such an extraordinary hostility on the part of the
animal, who was otherwise remarkably gentle and
good-tempered, attracted universal attention. It was
remembered that he had been always devotedly attached
to his master, against whom Macaire had cherished the
bitterest enmity. Other circumstances combined to
strengthen the suspicions now aroused.

The king of France, informed of all the rumours in
circulation on this subject, ordered the dog to be
brought before him. The animal remained perfectly
quiet till it recognised Macaire amid a crowd of
courtiers, and then rushed forward to seize him with a
tremendous bay. In these days the practice of the
judicial combat was in full vigour, that mode of
settling doubtful cases being frequently resorted to,
as an appeal to the 'judgment of God,' who it was
believed would interpose specially to shield and
vindicate injured innocence. It was decided by his
majesty, that this arbitrament should determine the
point at issue, and he accordingly ordered that a duel
should take place between Macaire and the dog of the
murdered Aubry.

The ground for the combat was marked off in the
lie Notre Dame, then an open space. Macaire made his
appearance armed with a large stick, whilst the dog
had an empty cask, into which he could retreat and
make his springs from. On being let loose, he
immediately ran up to his adversary, attacked him
first on one side and then on the other, avoiding as
he did so the blows from Macaire's cudgel, and at last
with a bound seized the latter by the throat. The
murderer was thrown down, and then and there obliged
to make confession of his crime, in the presence of
the king and the whole court. This memorable combat
was depicted over a chimney in the great hall of the
chateau of Montargis. The story has been made the
subject of a popular melodrama.

Elizabeth Cromwell, widow of the Protector, after
surviving her illustrious husband fourteen years, died
in the house of her son in law, Mr. Claypole, at
Norborough, in Northamptonshire, on 8th of October
1672. She was the daughter of Sir James Bourchier, a
wealthy London merchant, who possessed a country house
and considerable landed estates at Felsted, in Essex.
Granger, who would, by no means, be inclined to
flatter Elizabeth, admits that she was a woman of
enlarged understanding and elevated spirit. 'She was
an excellent housewife,' he continues, 'as capable of
descending to the kitchen with propriety, as she was
of acting in her exalted station with dignity; certain
it is, she acted a much more prudent part as Protectress than Henrietta did as queen.

She educated
her children with ability, and governed her family
with address.' A glimpse of the Protectorate household
is afforded by the Dutch ambassadors, who were
entertained at Whitehall in 1654. After dinner,
Cromwell led his guests to another room, then the
Lady-Protectress, with other ladies, came to them, and
they had 'music, and voices and a psalm.' Heath, in
his Flagellum, 'the little, brown, lying book' stigmatised by Carlyle, acknowledges that Cromwell was
a great lover of music, and entertained those that
were most skilled in it, as well as the proficients in
every other science. But this admission is modified by
the royalist writer taking care to remind his readers
that 'Saul also loved music.'

At a period when the vilest scurrility passed for
loyalty and wit, we hear no evil report of Elizabeth
Cromwell. No doubt her conduct was most carefully
watched by her husband's enemies, and the slightest
impropriety on her part would have speedily been
blazoned abroad; yet no writer of the least authority
throws reproach on her fair fame. It may he concluded,
then, that though probably plain in person, and
penurious in disposition, she was a virtuous, good
wife and mother. In Cowley's play, The Cutter of
Coleman Street, there is an allusion to her frugal
character and want of beauty, where the Cutter,
sneeringly describing his friend Worm, says: 'He
would have been my Lady-Protectress' poet; he writ
once a copy in praise of her beauty; but her highness
gave nothing for it, but an old half-crown piece in
gold, which she had hoarded up before these troubles,
and that discouraged him from any further applications
to court.'

It is a curious though unexplained fact, that we
find none of her relatives taking part in the great
civil war, nor even any of them employed under the
Protectorate administration of public affairs.
Nor has any indisputably genuine portrait of
Elizabeth been handed down to us, so that the only
representation of her features that we have, though
universally considered to be a likeness, is found as
the frontispiece of one of the most rare and curious
of cookery-books, published in 1664, and entitled The
Court and the Kitchen of Elizabeth, commonly called
Joan Cromwell, the Wife of the late Usurper, truly
Described and Represented.

The accompanying
illustration is a copy of this singular frontispiece.
The reader will notice a monkey depicted at one side
of the engraving, and probably may wonder why it was
placed there. In explanation, it must be said that the
old engravers sometimes indulged in a dry kind of humour, of which this is an example. There is an old
vulgar proverb that cannot well be literally repeated
at the present day, but its signification is, that on
the ground a monkey is passable enough, but the higher
it climbs, the more its extreme ugliness becomes
apparent. The animal, then, emblematises an ignorant
upstart; and as the work is a satire as well as a
cookery-book, the monkey is an apposite emblem of one
who, according to the author's opinion, ‘was a hundred
times fitter for a barn than a palace.'

From the peculiar style and matter of this book,
one is inclined to think that its author had been a
master-cook under the royal regime, and lost both his
office and perquisites by the altered state of
affairs. Or he may have been a discarded servant of
Elizabeth herself, for his various observations and
anecdotes evince a thorough knowledge of the
Protectorate household. Indeed this is the only value
the book now possesses, and it must not be forgotten
that the only fault or blame implied against Elizabeth
by this angry satirist, is her 'sordid frugality and
thrifty baseness.'

When the Protectress took possession of the palace
of Whitehall, our culinary author tells us that 'She
employed a surveyor to make her some little labyrinths
and trap-stairs, by which she might, at all times,
unseen, pass to and fro, and come unawares upon her
servants, and keep them vigilant in their places and
honest in the discharge thereof Several repairs were
likewise made in her own apartments, and many small
partitions up and down, as well above stairs as in the
cellars and kitchens, her highnessship not being yet
accustomed to that roomy and august dwelling, and
perhaps afraid of the vastness and silentness thereof.
She could never endure any whispering, or be alone by
herself in any of the chambers. Much ado she had, at
first, to raise her mind and deportment to this
sovereign grandeur, and very difficult it was for her
to lay aside those impertinent meannesses of her
private fortune; like the Bride Cat, metamorphosed
into a comely virgin, that could not forbear catching
at mice, she could not comport with her present
condition, nor forget the common converse and affairs
of life. She very providently kept cows in St. James's
Park, erected a dairy in Whitehall, with dairy-maids,
and fell to the old trade of churning butter and
making buttermilk. Next to this covey of milkmaids,
she had another of spinsters and sewers, to the number
of six, who sat most part of the day in "her privy
chamber sewing and stitching: they were all of them
ministers' daughters."

The dishes used at Cromwell's table, of which our
author gives the receipts, sufficiently prove that the
magnates of the Commonwealth were not insensible to
the charms of good living. Scotch collops of veal was
a very favourite dish, and marrow puddings were
usually in demand at breakfast. The remains, after
the household had dined, were alternately given to the
poor of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and St. Martin's
in the Fields, 'in a very orderly manner without
babble or noise.'

On great feast-days, Cromwell would
call in the soldiers on guard, to eat the relics of
his victuals. We are also told, but surely it must be
a scullery scandal, that the time honoured perquisite
of kitchen-stuff was endangered, under the rule of the
Protectress, she wishing to have it exchanged for
candles. Nor was she less penurious with her husband's
comforts; we are informed that: 'Upon Oliver's
rupture with the Spaniards, the commodities of that
country grew very scarce, and oranges and lemons were
very rare and dear. One day, as the Protector was
private at dinner, he called for an orange to a loin
of veal, to which he used no other sauce, and urging
the same command, was answered by his wife that
oranges were oranges now, that crab [Seville] oranges
would cost a groat, and, for her part, she never
intended to give it.'

The reason assigned by the Protectress for 'her
frugal inspection and parsimony, was the small
allowance and mean pittance she had to defray the
household expenses. Yet, she was continually receiving
presents from the sectaries; such as Westphalia hams, neats' tongues, puncheons of French wines, runlets of
sack, and all manner of preserves and comfits.'

It could not he expected that any cook of eminence
would serve in such an establishment, and so this
chronicler of the backstairs lets us know, that
Cromwell's cook was a person of no note, named
Starkey, who deservedly came to grief in a very simple
manner. One day, when the lord mayor was closeted with
the Protector on business of importance, this Starkey,
forgetting his high office and professional dignity,
took the lord mayor's swordbearer into the cellar,
treacherously intending to make that important
official drunk and incapable. But Starkey overrated
his own prowess, while underrating that of his guest;
for the well trained bacchanal of the city was little
affected by the peculiar atmosphere of the cellar,
while Starkey, becoming drunk and disorderly, was
overheard by the Protector, and ignominiously
discharged upon the spot.

The only state or expense indulged by the
Protectress was 'the keeping of a coach, the driver
of which served her for caterer, for butler, for
serving-man, and for gentleman usher, when she was to
appear in any public place.' And our author adds, that
she had ' horses out of the army, and their stabling
and livery in her husband's allotment out of the Mews,
at the charge of the state; so that it was the most
thrifty and unexpensive pleasure and divertisement,
besides the finery and honour of it, that could be
imagined. For it saved many a meal at home, when, upon
pretence of business, her ladyship went abroad; and
carrying some dainty provant for her own and her
daughters' own repast, she spent whole days in short
visits, and long walks in the air; so that she seemed
to affect the Scythian fashion, who dwell in carts and
wagons, and have no other habitations.'

The more we read of this scurrilous attack on a
prudent mistress, a good wife, and mother, the more we
are inclined to admire her true and simple character.
It is pleasant to contemplate the Lady-Protectress
leaving her palace and banquets of state, to take a
long country drive, and a sort of picnic-dinner with
her daughters. Nor does our author fail, in some
instances, to give her credit for good management; he
says that:

‘Her order of eating and meal-times was
designed well to the decency and convenience of her
service. For, fist of all, at the ringing of a bell,
dined the halberdiers, or men of the guard, with the
inferior officers. Then the bell rung again, and the
steward's table was set for the better sort of those
that waited on their highnesses. Ten of whom were
appointed to a table ore mess, one of which was chosen
by themselves every week for a steward, and he gave
the clerk of the kitchen a bill of fare, as was agreed
generally every morning. To these ten men, and what
friends should casually come to visit them, the value
of ten shillings, in what flesh or fish so ever they
would have, with a bottle of sack, and two of claret
was appointed. But, to prevent after-comers from
expecting anything in the kitchen, there was a general
rule that if any man thought his business would detain
him beyond dinner-time, he was to give notice to the
steward of his mess, who would set aside for him as
much as his share came to, and leave it in the
buttery.'

The utmost malignity of the royalists, then, could
say no more against the Lady-Protectress, than that
she was a thrifty housewife, giving her the
appellation of Joan, the vulgar phrase for a female
servant. And there is every reason to conclude that
Elizabeth Cromwell was a wife well worthy of her
illustrious partner.